In recent years, systems composed of FA equipment have become complicated and large, and the amount of programs for the PLCs and motion controllers used in the systems has been increasing. As a method of reducing the man-hours in such cases, there is a technology in which specific processes are defined in advance as components such as function blocks such that they can be easily used.
Moreover, systems composed of FA equipment are provided with a man-machine interface in many cases and in most of these cases, an HMI is used. There is a technology in which specialized screens for specific processes are modularized in advance also for an HMI such that they can be easily used.
The systems are in many cases configured such that a PLC that functions as a control part and an HMI that functions as a man-machine interface for a control target are used as a set in FA equipment. In such systems, the development efficiently is improved by using the modularization technology described above.
Moreover, for example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technology that improves the efficiency of generating a program and generating an HMI screen by associating a ladder program with an HMI screen by using variable names in advance. With the use of this technology, the ladder logic process and the screen data associated with the process can be used as a set, whereby the man-hours of a user can be reduced.